As of this writing there's been no testing to determine if it's toxic, but here's the thing: While runoff from the C-44 canal was flushed into the St. Lucie River last week, there have been no discharges from Lake Okeechobee this summer.

Our algae crises of recent years have always coincided with discharges.

Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society in Stuart, told TCPalm he doubts the green sheen, whatever it is, is the same stuff that gunked our shores in recent years.

But if it is... If we start home-brewing our own toxic algae blooms, even when there are no discharges — it could be game over.

That's one reason last week's little dust-up between Congressman Brian Mast and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers left me a little ... underwhelmed.

Mast, the Palm City Republican, has been haranguing the Corps for a while now, arguing for lower lake levels to reduce the need for discharges — which are harmful whether they're full of algae or not.

But the health implications of microcystin — the toxins in our recent toxic algal blooms — are huge. So last week, during a hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Mast put the question to the Corps' Maj. Gen. Scott Spellmon: Has the Army Corps transferred "toxic water" to our community?

The Corps, said Spellmon, has discharged water "that has contained cyanobacteria and harmful algae blooms."

Mast followed up: "And the Corps considers that toxic?" Spellmon said yes.

Mast took a victory lap.

"The importance of this admission, it cannot be overstated," he said in a video posted to Facebook; the Corps has been "poisoning our communities."

Two bills proposed by Mast would address this, requiring the Corps to warn people downstream before they start discharging water containing harmful algal blooms, and to take the health impact of toxic algae into consideration when making discharge decisions.

Great; necessary. But is this actually the first time the Corps copped to sending toxic water our way?

The response from Corps' spokesman John Campbell was the same as it had been in the past: Any breach in the Herbert Hoover Dike around Lake O would cause more human suffering than algae blooms.

Then there was an Aug. 17 meeting at Stuart City Hall where Rob Lord, President of Cleveland Clinic Martin Health, said 73 patients had been treated after coming in contact with blue-green algae. Blair Wickstrom said he had to shut down his Florida Sportsman magazine offices because nearby algae blooms were making employees sick.

Col. Jason Kirk of the Corps was there, heard it all, but said discharges would continue, "and there's algae in it."

The implication being: Assume the crash position.

CLOSE

Researchers have found that areas with frequent blue-green algae blooms also have a higher death rate from liver disease. TYLER TREADWAY/TCPALM
Wochit

So it's not like the Corps had no idea or was trying to mislead anyone — though it might have consciously avoided the loaded term, "toxic."

“I don’t know that we ever couched it in such specific terms,” said Corps spokesman John Campbell.

But one reason is that it's not the Corps' place to determine the toxicity of the blooms — that job falls to the state. "We are routinely informed about the results of those tests," Campbell said.

So sure, the Corps knows. But it doesn't change anything: "Sometimes what's lost in this discussion is the reason" for the discharges, Campbell said.

That is, where the integrity of the dike is a greater concern than the impact of blue-green algae downstream, the Corps has its marching orders. And even as the agency mulls changes to the Lake Okeechobee System Operating Manual, that core priority is unlikely to change.

So Mast scored a rhetorical point. The setting was important: on a national stage, Mast managed got the Corps on record with that word, "toxic."

Maybe that compels his congressional colleagues to back his proposals. That could be good news for those of us at the tail end of the Lake O sewer pipe.

But while politics is often a game of inches, we need yards — miles. Unless and until we get more water storage around the lake, there will be years we are inundated with rain. And however much algae there is on the lake, and however toxic it is, it will come our way.

Meanwhile, that green sheen in Rio makes clear the need to clean up our own backyard. This isn't an either-or thing; it's not either toxic water from Lake O is the problem or it's homegrown pollutants. It's both. It's all the above and more.

So the Corps' "admission" might be significant. But ultimately, it's just a milepost along the way.

And we've so many miles to go.

Gil Smart is a TCPalm columnist and a member of the Editorial Board. His columns reflect his opinion. Readers may reach him at gil.smart@tcpalm.com, by phone at 772-223-4741 or via Twitter at @TCPalmGilSmart.